


always was something

by carryyourownbanner



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: M/M, enjolras notice your boyfriend, have some tea, i’m tired of writing him being sad, plus being angry all the time isn’t good hon, why is this so long
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-18
Updated: 2019-10-18
Packaged: 2020-12-21 12:54:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21075215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carryyourownbanner/pseuds/carryyourownbanner
Summary: canon-era musings. grantaire learns to love enjolras the way enjolras is meant to be loved.





	always was something

There had always been something left to be desired from Enjolras’s complexion.

Grantaire would never complain, of course, but weeks of admiring from afar gave a man a fairly detailed recollection of a face, especially of one so adored; Grantaire determined that there must be something missing, if anything seemed off with the angel. Something must have been sacrificed when he came down to mingle among the common people.

His cheeks were not hollow, but instead full, still with the contradicting prominence of his cheekbones, which served not to make him ugly but rather to define him, to frame his distant glass eyes in a way which made it impossible not to look. His brows were light in accordance with his blonde curls, which fell in careless waves over his shoulders when it wasn’t tied back, a privilege to see indeed, which Grantaire had been granted only by chance when he met Enjolras late at the Musain, having returned for a drink after assuming everyone had gone. He was still dressed as a perfect gentleman, but his hair-ribbon was abandoned on the table before him, and his hair looked impossibly soft and Grantaire, in drunken haziness and sobriety alike, never failed to want to bury his face in it, breathe deep, and hold the angel close to his heart. Enjolras would never want for anything, if he were his, he swore.

It seems impossible that a man so admiring of another could find any fault with him. If Grantaire couldn’t name it, he could certainly sense it, even in a man with a voice like the most distant thunder and hips that begged to be held- something missing. Something that made him ugly. 

There was one time, Grantaire remembers, where the fault had been missing. He was positively radiant. For once he had shown faith in Grantaire- or saw at last his hopeless devotion to him- and Grantaire had not let him down. His connections proved true and his flighty conviction in the cause had for once solidified all in an effort to please Enjolras. He had smiled at him. He had smiled at him because of him.

Perhaps the thought made him conceited.

That one time, maybe, shaped much of Grantaire’s present judgement of the matter.

Now, Enjolras was a sight to be seen no matter the beholder. He was objectively handsome in every sense of the word, and charming in a way that could seduce anyone to whatever he pleased. Grantaire hypothesized that that was the chief reason so many people followed him initially; the eye makes the first judgement, it is a human fault, and that judgement may never be amended. It is the knowledge that it exists wrongfully and the choice not to amend it which is the crime. Grantaire had first seen only a beautiful boy, and in a similarly earthly way had fallen for his mouth and his femininity. He then heard him speak, and erased, conscientiously, any trace of a naïve blonde from his mind. The boy was no boy at all, but a man, and one which, despite- no, as a consequence of- his reform, he fell even further in love with.

And, even through the rosy lens which comes with being in love, and with the natural beauty that comes from being loved that Enjolras possessed without even knowing it, Grantaire still saw a single fault.

He was angry. He was strong. He was determined. He wasn’t  happy . 

Grantaire didn’t understand it. To have accomplished what he had- it was truly a marvel, to Grantaire, how anyone could fight so devotedly for anything that wasn’t living. 

From that musing came another hypothesis. Enjolras saw France as a living, breathing thing with a heart, with a pulse. Grantaire tried to think of it like that. Maybe then, maybe he could believe.Soon France became Enjolras, and he went from something not unlike a god in the eyes of Grantaire to something fragile and human. Connecting his undying faith in Enjolras and his utter lack of it in France and society as a whole was a dangerous thing.

It was his stony complexion. That was his connection with humanity, Grantaire decided. He suffered with them. He could not smile while they ached. If France was a person, Enjolras was their heart. Grantaire was the poorly functioning liver. 

Grantaire wanted him to smile. When he did, the ‘flaw’- if it could be called that- vanished. He was glowing. Radiant. An angel.

He resolved to do what he could to preserve such an ethereal thing in his memory. Repetition, he decided, was key- and, deny it as Enjolras might, he was quite amused by Grantaire’s antics. How does he know, you ask? Well, of course he knows; he’s felt what it’s like to be smiled upon by the god Apollo. 

He knew what it was like to be held by the god Apollo, even fleetingly; an embrace of camaraderie or a jubilant, genuine  hug . Enjolras was a sight to see and even greater a heart to behold.

That was it, then. His heart, the impetus of his activity, was bleeding and open in the street for the people of Paris, all the while leaving him cold and guarded to all distractions.

The human heart so often closes itself off once it’s reached its capacity for love- and Enjolras had an unusually large capacity- and refuses to let anyone or anything else in. This is how it is that people grow to hate their sons and daughters-in-law, or step-siblings; their heart has chosen whom to be devoted to and won’t allow anything that might divert that attention. Enjolras’s was of the variety that ignored any notion of complacency and grew to welcome more people into it, even if out of nothing but spite.

Grantaire loved him anyway.

“Do you ever worry it’ll stay?”

Enjolras stared. “What?”

“The lines upon your forehead when you frown so. You would do well to relax, dear leader.”

“Do not call me  _tu_ .”

“Why shouldn’t I? I am familiar with you, Enjolras. I would do for you anything a friend can or will, and anything more you require.  _Vous_ feels incredibly impersonal, Enjolras, you must understand.”

Many of their conversations passed thus. This was the period of transition, as Enjolras’s heart was opening to Grantaire. He was often a wicked man in his fright, but Grantaire never faltered. He was a blind man, and he trusted his guide would never abandon him. He was too good for that.

This period didn’t last. The seraphic smiles became commonplace, and sometimes- if Grantaire was a very, very lucky man on a given day- it was accompanied by a laugh, a song that could be sweeter if it weren’t soft from disuse. Grantaire restored it, little by little. He had help, too, from the others.

Who knew what the catalyst had been, ultimately, of his change in demeanor towards Grantaire specifically. If it were Grantaire himself, he knew not what he had done, so he thought it safe to assume it had been Enjolras’s own doing, or something of that kind- he was not easily swayed in matters such as these. They were always dusted under the rug, anyway, left to be addressed at a later date while he left to address the people. 

He was no king of the land, but Grantaire did not rule his own soul. To be recognized by one’s dear sovereign is to be given purpose; Grantaire’s soul had been given purpose. He had direction that he had never known before. Best of all, he had belief, and he had conviction. He did not have to play mind games to trick himself into fighting for something larger than himself- that wasn’t Enjolras- because his love for Enjolras was finally realized by the receiver and from there, he could direct it. He directed Grantaire, and Grantaire obeyed.

“I’d do anything.”

“You wouldn’t.”

He used  _tu_ .

“I would!”

“I don’t mean to assume your priorities-“

“Enjolras, my dear, dull boy, if you wish to guess right, you need look no further than a mirror.”

“Grantaire-“

“Do not feign ignorance. You’re much to bright for that.”

“If I’m much too anything, it is exhausted, and it is because of you.”

“You do me too much credit, Enjolras. You adore me, but your priorities fall quite opposite from anyone with a sous to spare for a meal, let alone a mirror.” 

“I adore you?”

“I don’t believe I’ve made any pretenses.”

And here Enjolras graced him with another one of those fine things the Greeks called chamógelo; it was faint but telling, eyes glinting with amusement.“You don’t?”

“You are human, Apollo, you are not immune to the ails of the heart.”

“Of what would you diagnose me?”

“Affection.”

“For whom?”

“Well, my dear,” Grantaire said, and Enjolras did not flinch away, “I think you’re quite capable of telling me yourself.”

Enjolras’s singular flaw which Grantaire had discovered vanished from that point on entirely.

How? Well, Grantaire would not have noticed it, because he was a necessary element of the picture. Should you ask another one of Enjolras’s many friends and associates, though, you would get only a partial answer, but with it the bit required to complete the puzzle. Grantaire’s testimony, which we’ve already studied, would have paired nicely with theirs.

You see, Enjolras looked very nice by Grantaire’s side. It was not because Grantaire was ugly- he was handsome, even, for much the same reason (that is about to be relayed) for which Enjolras seemed flawless. 

Enjolras was only every beautiful because he was loved. All his life, he was loved- from his mother, to the first admirer from afar, to the next, and then to Grantaire, whose admiration became passion, which, without fail, begets either love or hate; sometimes both. In Grantaire’s case, as we know, he had no choice but to love. In his vice we see his resentment for it.

Balance is a vital element of the natural order. An idealist could not be complete without a skeptic just like the sun couldn’t be as much a blessing in the eyes of humanity if it shone always. Without winter, there is no summer, there is only heat. And, without a reason to be grateful for it, one can grow to resent it. 

A man lost in the dark wants only for sunrise. A candle. A match. Starlight. A man in the light does not think of the dark of it does not threaten him. Grantaire could not fear his own cynicism, his depression, with Enjolras’s light. He would not know to. Enjolras had saved him from the latter; the former was his nature, and what made him human. 

Enjolras knew he would not live to see the change he hoped to enact; it was inevitable. But to see a single soul so affected by his existence- a man turned from hating invariably, the type to give up before a race has began, into the sort who was already at his marks before anyone had paved the track- because of Enjolras, for Enjolras- it gave him something to hold onto. His life could not be a waste. It had served to save Grantaire’s.

Grantaire would not know the difference, could not truly see the difference, for he did not know Enjolras before Enjolras knew him. Enjolras would never tell him. 


End file.
